RE: [Blog] Thoughts from the Front Lines: Fortitude
You are an inspiration to be certain!! I would love to say I made it through childbirth med free, but sadly had to be induced both times and medications ensued. I couldn't imagine being fresh from L&D and having kidney stones.... what a mess! I'm so glad you found the will power to keep moving and to take care of your littles.
You said it best, our generation is lazy and lacks self confidence. I find myself sweating and doubting myself every time I take on a new project. (twas foretold there would be one who doubts) I'm glad I have the will power and motivation to push through and take on things I am not familiar with and learn from mistakes.
Very happy you were able to make it through that week of pain. I'm sorry you had to :( Are kidney stones a regular problem for you, or did something bring it on in this case? It's okay not to answer if I'm asking too much. Sometimes I don't know my limits when it comes to personal questions.
Thanks for sharing your encouraging words!
Heh, while I did make it through childbirth med-free, I did not make it through kidney stones med-free. I was on the highest dose of ibuprofen I could take every four hours for that whole week. Although one reason I didn't go to the ER was because I knew they would just prescribe stuff I couldn't take while nursing and I wasn't going to give up nursing right in the beginning like that. So no morphine or vicodin or anything so powerful.
Personally, I think any woman giving birth in a hospital has tremendously massive will-power to get through a birth without any meds because they are so highly encouraged at a time when you're pretty much overwhelmed by what's going on and not in a good place to resist. I don't have to maintain as much will-power because I'm at home and no one's offering, so I don't even have to think about it. It's not a badge of courage on my part, I guess is what I'm saying. More of a comparison to point out that the kidney stones were WAY worse!
I had kidney stones twice before, but both times were in my teens so it'd been almost twenty years and those ones were very small and resolved quickly (within an hour). As near as I can tell, I had trouble because of not drinking enough water and taking large amounts of calcium while my PH levels were high. I didn't have enough acid present in my body to dissolve the stone, plus pregnancy causes all internal organs to move around and not necessarily function as efficiently as usual (one reason some women end up with severe gallbladder problems during pregnancy). It wasn't until after the birth when everything was coming back down into it's proper spot that the stone dislodged and had to come out.
I am concerned for this time around as well since I already had some signs of another stone that did resolve but warned me this might just be an ongoing issue, so I'm drinking lemon juice and apple cider vinegar and unsweetened cranberry juice every day, which is usually pretty successful at flushing stones. I'm also taking hydrolyzed collagen or gelatin for the calcium instead of high doses of calcium through tablets. And drinking a lot more water than last pregnancy. We'll see how it goes!
It sounds like you have a good plan of action! It's interesting all the things a body goes through during it's pregnancy. It makes sense that it would happen after labor. I'm glad you knew better than to try to get medication that would affect baby, that's something a lot of people would never think of. With my first child, I wasn't thinking about anything other than drinking when it came to breastfeeding. I had my teeth worked on several times and took the pain medicines they gave me and continued to bf even though it should have been obvious.... Guess that's something I didn't think to tell the dentist either.
I'm glad you have it figured out and I hope this one goes really well for you!
It's definitely interesting - I saw a diagram recently of where all the internal organs go by the end when the baby is full term and it was a little bit startling. It's amazing everything still works at all!
Well, the good news is that our kids tend to survive and thrive in spite of a lot of things we realize later we probably shouldn't have done. I took ibuprofen a couple of days toward the end of my first pregnancy because I was so sore and found out later that ibuprofen can seriously compromise a newborn's heart from being able to switch over to independent function at birth, so it's absolutely not recommended in third trimester even though it's safe to take after the baby is born. Thankfully, my oldest had no trouble with her heart!
Here's hoping on the plan of action...I've been praying not to do that particular bit of recovery again...but I suppose if it's a problem again I'll know we can get through it. You know, ironically the reason I was taking high doses of calcium (and magnesium) was because I was trying to head off the after pains that get more severe with each baby and I found a lot of advice from older moms suggesting CalMag as a good way to help your muscles not spasm so much. My thought process was that it would be better to take high doses of calcium and magnesium instead of ibuprofen or acetaminophen for the couple days after the baby was born. And then I ended up taking massive doses of ibuprofen for a solid week. Sometimes solutions just don't go as planned...
haha i saw a video similar to that diagram you are talking about, it's crazy how much space that little 7 pound baby will need!! I can feel my organs now after having children, before i had no idea where my bladder was, now i can tell you how big it is at the moment lol
It's a good thing he made us so resistant to the products this world has to offer us. I had no idea about the ibuprofen during the third trimester, glad to know now.
That is ironic that you were trying to be proactive and wound up making it worse... i pray this combo works perfectly for you this go around, but like you said, you can do it!!